


Customer Service

by HostisHumaniGeneris



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bad Puns, Crack, Gen, Inappropriate Humor, Potions Accident, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-07-21 02:25:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16150580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HostisHumaniGeneris/pseuds/HostisHumaniGeneris
Summary: Illyana was apprentice potionmaker of the great Madame Locusta.  That leaves her to deal with irate customers and their variety of silly complaints.  It's a rough job, but someone needs to do it.





	Customer Service

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alunsina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alunsina/gifts).



“Sir, the label clearly states ‘not for usage on animals other than _Gallus Gallus Domesticus_ —the chicken.” Illyana said, not even bothering to look up from her scroll.  “The fact sheet given to you with your purchase also warned you the potion could cause sexual dysfunction, growth and or loss of hair, and shrinkage in mammals.”

“I’m getting the magistrate in here to shut you people down!  You said the potion would make my cock grow gigantic.” The bald man with the furry arms, and, judging by his temperament and the fact he bought the potion for an off label use, a desperate need to compensate for something, yelled.

Sighing, Illyana set down her scroll and stood up.  “Yes.  It’ll grow your cock.  You rooster, your fowl, your male chicken.  _Not_ your penis.  You were looking for the ‘Snake oil to grow your snake’, not the Potion of Cock-Growth.”

She then customarily offered him a voucher for half off his next purchase, however, he refused it angrily.  They argued back and forth.  How _dare_ they sell a cock-growth potion that caused shrinkage.  How _stupid_ was he to ignore the many, numerous warnings.  He namedropped the magistrate.  A voice from under the counter shrieked about how Illyana was a monster who would turn him into furniture if he tried that.  The customer backed off as the voice screamed “I was once a maaaan!  Now I’m a counter!  Once a maaaaan!”

“That wasn’t very nice.” Illyana said, rapping her knuckles against the countertop that she had spilled a potion of making inanimate object sentient upon.  She was grinning as she watched the customer flee screaming though; the Counter was good people.  It really helped pass the time having someone to talk to, even if they were an inanimate object, and the counter gag helped end several complicated refund negotiations.

* * *

J’heff O’donahg, Render of Souls, or as she knew him, Uncle Jeff, had pulled some strings to get her this gig, and she was quite appreciative.  Long line of mages, and mom was _such_ a pain, constantly wondering when she’d transmute something or other.  But that life held no appeal.  Uncle Jeff had connections and/or people terrified of having their souls rended, and convinced Madame Locusta to take Illyana up as an apprentice potionmaker.

That was ‘low magic’, per mother.  She could do such wonders if she just applied herself.  But, Illyana’s mother had come to terms with the fact her girl was not interested in forging pacts with unnameable entities or giving supernatural advice to kings, and at least Illyana was not trying to be a bard any more.

Madame Locusta was a genius when it came to potions; the things she could do with various forms of root and offal were as impressive as some doddering graybeard occasionally calling down columns of flame or something.  And Illyana was a fast study, rapidly learning to the point where Locusta often let her mix the potions if no customers around to be dealt with.  Unfortunately, she also had to deal with customers when they came, and if there was one thing she hated it was Madame Locusta’s genius being wasted by idiots who could not be bothered to read the instructions.  And her genius, too.

Okay, so maybe the names needed a little work. But if you _read the goddamn label_ , there'd be no problem. 

The cock-growth potion was a big one, but over the course of the day there were plenty more fools; women who wanted giant hooters should have just looked at the owl drawn on that label.  And people really, really had to stop trying to get drunk on potions.  At best, it’d be something inert.  At worst, it would cause a situation.

Illyana still remembered the day when the man buying the potion of vitality chugged the entire bottle as soon as he paid for it despite the clear written and verbal warnings that he was drinking to much.  Cleaning up the shop after his head exploded was insufferably boring.  Plus nearby orphanage was chock full of babies who drank too much youth-rejuvenating formulas. 

Still, if that dealing with these fools was the price of doing what fascinated her, Illyana would do it.

* * *

“GRABTHOK THE BARBARIAN DEMANDS PAYBACK!” Grabthok the Barbarian yelled.

“Oh, a barbarian.  Like your esteemed cousin?” The Counter said.  “Too fool-hardy to pay attention to important information.  At least this one doesn’t reek of mead and… whatever else.”

“Cousin Li-Li has been nothing but nice to you.” Illyana chided.  She didn’t get the antagonism that the Counter displayed, unless it was just because her cousin had a magic talking sword and it made Illyana’s magic talking Counter feel inadequate.  That conversation would have to be held at a different time, as Grabthok slammed his fist on the countertop, hard.  And then proceeded to wince and rub his hand while the Counter loudly complained that it was uncalled for. “What seems to be the problem, Grabthok?”

“You lied to me!  You said this potion would make me an extraordinary warrior!” Grabthok had never been here while she was working, and she had to check a ledger to make sure.

“Okay, Grabthok… it says here the potion was to make you an extra ordinary warrior.” Illyana said, emphasizing that it was two words, not one.

That was an odd commission that Locusta told her about a few days ago.  She had been charged, years ago, with creating a cheaply-made potion to turn helpless peasants into slightly less helpless minimally-competent warriors.  The commissioner had been a prince in desperate need of a lot of cannon fodder, but by the time Locusta had completed the potion, said prince had been defeated and murdered by the Skeleton King.  Should’ve asked for that potion sooner.  Still Locusta had an army’s worth of averageness to dole out, and priced the bottles to sell.

“Extra Ordinary?”

“Yep, you now have all the powers and abilities of a reasonably in-shape man.” Illyana said.

“But I had the strength of ten men!  The potion was supposed to take me to even higher heights.” Ten men wasn't even very impressive, as far as ridiculous barbarian boasting went.  Her cousin drunkenly boasted of having the strength of twenty, while her compatriots proclaimed having the strength of infinite men, and infinity plus-one-men. According to the resultant brawl, strength of twenty was actually better than infinite strength.

“But it was a potion to make men ordinarily competent.” Illyana said, realizing this was another situation where a clearer name for the bottle would’ve worked.  “However, in order to express our gratitude towards your patronage, please accept this coupon for half off your next…”

That was as far as she could get before he slapped it out of his hand.  “Fool!  Nobody does this to Grabthok the Barbarian and lives!”

“Really?” Illyana asked.  Her mother’s side of the family were murderous spellcasters.  Her father’s side… Gods rest his reanimated skeleton…were murderous berserkers.  She had grown up in an environment where family gatherings tended to either entail summoning or slaying entities man was not meant to see.

So an ordinary angry man was not threatening.

Five minutes later, Grabthok the Barbarian lay on the floor, unconscious, and the store remained closed until Illyana ran to the local constables to request their aide in getting the uncouth vandal from out of Madame Locusta’s shop.

When she came back, a line had formed.  Curses.  Not even bothering to get back to the counter, she just lined them all up to address their concerns.

* * *

“Okay, it’s not Madame Locusta’s fault you didn’t trust us and decided to test out the love potion on a horse,” Illyana said, annoyed that this was a thing that she had to deal with.  Always with the using love potions on wild animals; she got the farmers who were trying to breed their stock together, failed to follow instructions, and now their prized bulls were rutting their scarecrows.  But this happened _way too often_ , where people wandered into the shop trailed by something that _accidentally_ drank the potion, and they always came back, regretting it.  “No please leave, store rules do not allow ungulates.  Please accept this coupon and… yeah, he is rather majestic.”

* * *

A man brought in an end table she claimed to be his wife, and _demanded_ a refund.  When Illyana asked which potion she had bought, what dosage she had, the man was indignant, demanding to speak with Illyana’s manager.  When Illyana opened the door to Madame Locusta’s sanctum, she very quickly closed it as soon as the man walked through.  Still the screams echoed.

Hey, he wanted to speak with her.

* * *

“The side effects were all clearly labelled… I'm _really_ sorry about this.” Illyana trailed off, wondering whether ‘sir’ was the proper form of address for a shapeless mass of eyes and feelers.  It blinked rapidly and turned to leave.  She vaulted over the counter despite its protest to give some  words of encouragement.  “Oh, and please accept this coupon.”

"Oh my god, what did he take?!"  Next person in line asked.  The feathery thing shuddered.

"Cold remedy." Illyana said, frowning.

"And it turned him into _that_?"  She looked down. Tears were welling up in those eyes.

"First of all, his name's Gordon, second of all no it didn't, you judgmental prick!"  Gordon hadn't heeded that the potion may cause drowsiness and fell asleep while driving his cart.  He just came in to know if Illyana knew a carpenter to fix it.  "Now get the fuck out of this store!"

"But... don't I..."

"No Coupon for you.  Next!" She handed Gordon another coupon and apologized for the man's behavior.

* * *

“You used that potion on your cat?!” Illyana gasped.  “It was for an entirely different kind of pu… you know what, have a coupon.  And wait... yeah no, the beaver toxin was meant to clear out the animal... oh gods be praised you didn't try that on your...”

They _really_ needed to change some of those names.

* * *

A woman came buy, not looking to complain, but asking if anyone had seen her husband.  He had taken his table and left a note she was going to the potion shop.  Illyana shrugged and handed over a coupon.

* * *

“Yes, that potion with the skull on it was not for use on anything you wanted to live very long, why do you…” Illyana said, before the customer pitched over, frothing at the mouth.  “…oh.”  She left a coupon on the corpse.

* * *

After that, it was quiet until a timid-looking man approached.  He stepped forward, then back, raised his hand and opened his mouth, then closed them and backed away.  Finally he approached the counter.  “Is Madame Locusta in?”

“She is very busy.” Illyana said, studying the man.

“Um… I bought her potion of Cock Growth.” He was turning red as he spoke those words sheepishly.  He set the bottle down in front of her.  “And…”

“The label clearly states that it’s not for usage on anything except chickens.” Illyana sighed.  The young man nodded hard enough she was almost worried his head would come off.

“I know, it’s just… the labels don’t really say anything about the right dosage…”

“Bah-Bakaaaaw!” The front windows rattled at the crowing.  Suddenly, the giant circular eye of a rooster peered in on them.  Illyana quickly looked over the bottle seeing that the man spoke true, dosage was not on the label… that could be bad, they’d have to address that going forward.  She turned back to the windows, and the giant rooster.

"Oh dear, that is a giant cock." The Counter helpfully chimed in.

Then Illyana opened the door to Locusta’s inner sanctum.  After a conversation explaining that yes, aside from the ongoing renaming project they needed to include proper dosages on all bottles, and oh yes there is a giant chicken out there what do we do, Illyana came back with a bottle of viscous red liquid. 

The young man curiously lifted it.  “Is this like poison?  Or if I drink it will I be able to command the chicken?”

“It’s called ‘barbeque sauce’.” Illyana said.  “When I said ‘giant chicken’, Madame Locusta gave me this and demanded a drumstick when we got done with it.”

“You told her it was…”

“I did inform her that we probably would need an epic hero in order to defeat the rooster, yes.”

“And she gave you some manner of cooking sauce?”

“Her view is that you wanted a giant chicken, and got a giant chicken.” Illyana shrugged.  “However, due to the circumstances, we would like to offer you a coupon for buy-one-get-one-free on a potion of defeathering fowl and on a potions of spontaneous combustion.”

In the end, the farmer ended up paying, and then making his money back and extra in selling off the deliciously cooked chicken.  And Illyana could only think that, while there were many loud voices complaining, they still had legions of customers who never came to the shop to voice their anger.

Whether that was because they were quite satisfied with their purchases or had been rendered mute by those purchases did not really matter to Illyana.

**Author's Note:**

> This was an amusing little idea that I had to try.
> 
> I'd like to thank Vampire Paladin for helping me come up with potion titles.


End file.
